Memories and photos of the RS500s from the '80s

In case you didn't realise Paul, Dad (Graham) ran the Sierra Securicor rally challenge in '86. I went to the press launch in the New Forest (special guest Barry Sheene, he was sponsored by Securicor in the BTCC), the Sunseeker (or whatever it was called then) and the Welsh later in the year. The Sierras had terrible trouble getting through the first event's scrutineering as the officials simply wouldn't believe that the rear spoiler was standard fitment!

Part of the deal was Dad had a Securicor cellphone fitted in his Sierra 4x4 which was a big job in '86! A huge box of tricks in the boot and a massive handset hanging from the dash. For the RAC, the last round of the championship, his white road car was decalled up with full sponsorship livery.

I have some old pictures somewhere, really must dig them out.

Incidentally, never knew about the red factory 3-door. Does it show a red paint code on the chassis plate?

wow Hamish I didnt know that, he had a finger in lots of pies back then, must have been great getting up so close to it all for you

Vince raced the Capri in the 70s and used to own a Ford dealership in Bristol, he bought the red car at a closed Ford auction in the 80s and he has owned it ever since, it was allegedly specced for a Duke (bit like the black S1 RS turbo car for Princess Diana) as all his cars had to be red. I am guessing it was a loaner like Dianas and went back to Ford who then disposed of it into the trade only auction.

I have had a close up look at it, even being cheeky and lifting the rubbers ! and it does look like original paint rather than a dealer repaint like a lot of the non standard colour ones. I am told on good authority it does have the correct red paint tag on the slam panel and was done at Genk. The pic is an official Ford one from when it was brand new, that was given to a chap as a present when he was visiting Boreham.

The cars now done around 80,000 miles and has had a few paint additions from back when people did things like that, all easy to correct though. Its been at the last two RS days at Combe.

In case you didn't realise Paul, Dad (Graham) ran the Sierra Securicor rally challenge in '86. I went to the press launch in the New Forest (special guest Barry Sheene, he was sponsored by Securicor in the BTCC), the Sunseeker (or whatever it was called then) and the Welsh later in the year. The Sierras had terrible trouble getting through the first event's scrutineering as the officials simply wouldn't believe that the rear spoiler was standard fitment!

Part of the deal was Dad had a Securicor cellphone fitted in his Sierra 4x4 which was a big job in '86! A huge box of tricks in the boot and a massive handset hanging from the dash. For the RAC, the last round of the championship, his white road car was decalled up with full sponsorship livery.

I have some old pictures somewhere, really must dig them out.

Incidentally, never knew about the red factory 3-door. Does it show a red paint code on the chassis plate?

If they normally were not made in red it must be about the only sporty model car ever made that was not. Red cars always go faster!!

OK here we go. Apologies for the DREADFUL reproduction – these photos are 24 years old and, as I don’t have a scanner yet, I’ve had to photograph photographs (confusing).

First off, the Eggenberger RS500 and its transporter at Silverstone for the WTC Tourist Trophy meeting:

Then, during the summer of ’87, my Dad hosted a party at home. Stuart Turner turned up in the prototype ‘500…

Then, as mentioned previously, Dad was the organiser of the Securicor Sierra Challenge, which was a championship run through Ford RS dealers (remember those?) to develop the car for rallying in 1986. The press launch was based firstly at the Securicor headquarters in Bournemouth:

They were then run on the back of the National rally championship, and Dad’s XR4x4 road-car was be-decked in the championship colours:

Hamish, thanks for digging them out, fantastic pics of the proto RS500, I know a few of the other 500 owners who will love to see those, especially the chap who is putting together a photo database of the 500 production cars.

Just had a look and its not been taxed since 95 so its either gone abroad or is in a million bits, I will do some asking around and see which build number it is and if anyone knows if its still alive. D62 XVX (build no 12) went to the Benetton F1 team and is now in Ireland.

edit

had it confirmed she is build number 6, and was the photography car, not looking so pretty these days and was fitted with a thundersaloon kit at some point in its life (hopefully it will be rebuilt one day)

This one solved all the reliability and driveability problems. It has a 350 Chev in it. The Mike Ceveri owned ex Don Smith Oxo Gp A Sierra that Andy Medecki ? trashed at Sandown. Built into a Sports Sedan. a Bit like an English Thundersports.

Uploaded with ImageShack.usThe car behind is Des Wall in the ex Bryan Thompson Toyota Supra. Which was a reshell on the ex Bob Jane Chev Monza.Mallala Sth Oz early 90sThe car is/was For Sale to finance Mikes son into a Formula Ford drive.

Here are three very dodgy quality screen grabs from a video I took at the British Saloon Car support to the 1988 British Grand Prix which might be of interest.

David

Always good to see some 'behind the scenes' shots from the paddock.Top to bottom: Guy Edwards' Rouse/Kaliber car, Graham Goode's Listerine car, and Mike Newman's car in his 'Burlington Wallcoverings' colours- Mike's car was also run by Graham Goode- the next season both GGR cars had Listerine sponsorship, but were black. I think the white Listerine car is now in Australia?

OK here we go. Apologies for the DREADFUL reproduction – these photos are 24 years old and, as I don’t have a scanner yet, I’ve had to photograph photographs (confusing).

Then, as mentioned previously, Dad was the organiser of the Securicor Sierra Challenge, which was a championship run through Ford RS dealers (remember those?) to develop the car for rallying in 1986. The press launch was based firstly at the Securicor headquarters in Bournemouth:

They were then run on the back of the National rally championship, and Dad’s XR4x4 road-car was be-decked in the championship colours:

Well that’s about all I have, again sorry about the quality!

The Securicor Sierra pics are particularly interesting Hamish, as they show the cars with their RAC Rally numbers. I was wondering how they'd been able to run on the '86 RAC as I thought the Sierra wasn't homologated until early '87, but I've just dug out Rally Sport magazine's car-by-car report of the RAC, and it lists them as running in Group B- Assuming it's not a typo in the mag, were they homologated into Group B as a temporary measure? They were certainly the only Cosworths on the event, and all three retired within a few stages of each other on the third day

In the top pic, L-R they'reLeft: C234HVW: Peacocks of London car, driven by Chris Mellors/Brian Staker, #43 on the entry list- the car in the middle picCentre: C233HVW: Whites of Taunton car of Rob Stoneman/Peter Davis, #45 on the entry list- also in the bottom photoRight: C240HVW is the Brooklyn Garages car for Phil Collins/Bryan Thomas, #42 on the entry list

Sorry if it has been discussed before, but how does the Lauda Air sponsorship fit in?

PAR

Sorry Phil not sure where the Lauda Air connection comes from but what a great looking car. Somebody must have spent a lot of time restoring it. Is it a UK car? There seems to be a lot of these ex racing RS500's around now, does anyone ever run them on track, or are they just show cars? I have seen the clip on You Tube of Tim in the Labatts car at Mallory by the look of it, we never raced them there, probably would'nt get out of third gear! The understeer round Gerards would be impressive as well I guess. The only thing that looks wrong to me on the Caltex car is the profile of the tyres, but I may be wrong. The guy in the red jacket standing behind the car looks familar to me, is he the owner?

I looked out some photos of my car that would not have been seen before that I was going to post but I'll have to work out to do that first!

The Caltex car is the one Paul the RS500 registrar built from scratch based on an unused group A prepped shell, it sure is a cracker. Paul used the aussie caltex cars as his inspiration ( he is the chap in the middle of the 3 people in the background and is still the current owner)

I believe the Lauda air connection was down to them offering a service to Aus during the late 80s hence backing the original car

If anyone fancies the original touring car look for there cosworth I have decided to sell my lovely set of BBS 17" centrelock split rims. Very very rare to find these days, especially lightly used ones, most had a hard life back then.

Had a look in Graham Robson's British Touring Car Racing in Camera, page 138. A 1988 picture the Rouse RS500 lined up at the grid for a Thruxton race don't reveal the lettering, if any. It rather looks like a broken white line going something like ___ _ ___ _ ___ _ ___ etc.

Came across another image last night and it looked like the broken line. Just when it was zoomed in on Adobe bridge it started to look like letters. The joys of pixels I feel playing tricks on the eyes!

Great looking car, but as I remember Chris's car always appeared to have a high ride height when seen on TV, particularly at the Donington race where the car appeared to be very nervous.He really did wring it's neck at the time though. Great restoration, I'm not sure if the front splitter would have gone through scrutineering and I guess the exhaust is to comply with current noise regs. Would I be right in thinking the tyres are a lower profile as well ? How do the lap times compare with 1988?

That's Richard Asquith, who ran Karl Jone's car looking enviously at the Brooklyn car. Karl's car was ran on a shoe string and although well prepared did not have all the best bits, Karl used to really get the car to perform particularly if it was wet. He would have been a real front runner had he been put in a 'top' car. He was also the only one running on Avon tyres which were not great on an RS 500. He did get pole once at Thruxton in 88, in the damp as I remember. A great chap! Guess he's gone back to the valley's now.

I remember reading an article where one of the drivers from a less funded RS500 team was walking along the pitlane and he took a look at one the eggenberger cars and he realised the calipers used on the front of his car were the same as those used by egmo on the rear, and he realised there and then they stood no chance against the big money boys.

The Jones/Asquith car has been in Italy since the early 90s and regularly used by its loving owner, a few pics of it as it is now are on this thread a good few pages back.

I remember reading an article where one of the drivers from a less funded RS500 team was walking along the pitlane and he took a look at one the eggenberger cars and he realised the calipers used on the front of his car were the same as those used by egmo on the rear, and he realised there and then they stood no chance against the big money boys.

The Jones/Asquith car has been in Italy since the early 90s and regularly used by its loving owner, a few pics of it as it is now are on this thread a good few pages back.

Yes, a lot of teams who lacked good sponsorship built their cars up from a lot of rally parts which were less than ideal on the circuits. The Egganberger cars were in a different league again to the Rouse 'Kit' cars, they had a lot more compliant chassis than Andy's cars which tended to be built/set-up really stiffly. Where Andy himself used to score over Steve (Soper) was that he had a lot more grunt than Steve's car. If you look at any of their fantastic duels that they had in 1988 you can see that Steve's car get's out of the corners a lot better, it was also a lot kinder to its tyres as well. This was probably because the Egganberger cars were originally built for longer distance racing so ran less power.

Although my car was basically a Rouse kit car it had been built from scratch by Roger Dowson. Initially we used Dunlop tyres, rather than the Pirelli's that Andy and his cars had. We tried setting the car up a lot softer which kind of worked because my car was always kind to its tyres, I was also usually pretty quick in the wet as my car was more managable, if a Group A RS500 can ever be described as managable in the wet ! But ultimately if you didn't have enough power you just were not there. We ran Rouse customer spec engines which was not that smart, but in 88 Andy was the only guy in the UK who could build an engine that would hold together for a couple of races. The down side was you never got the same power level as he or Guy Edwards had. We ran a comprehensive engine development program with Mountune through the 1988 season to try and get a reliable/powerful engine for the BTCC car. At that time he was building the engines for the Firestone production saloons that I drove with Mark Hales which were great. Unfortunately every time we fitted one of David's engines in the BTCC RS500 to test, the motor would usually destroy itself in a handful of laps. It wasn't until Mountune got the Dick Johnson software that was supplied with the Startrec cars that David produced an engine that would hold together. We did approach Rudy Egganberger during 88 to supply us with engines but they were double the price of Andy's and then there was the problem of software for the management system, as Rudy would not supply it and they did not do every race, so it was not a really workable solution. Andy charged about £15000 for a Group A engine in 1988, I remember we blew 3 up during one weekend at Oulton Park !

Of course the story of 89 was the Yokohama tyres fitted to the Startrec (Trackstar) cars, these were light years ahead of anything else. By the way Startrec was what the name used by the other Sierra BTCC drivers for Tracstar! I guess we were all a little envious as know one else could get the Yokohama tyres, but fair play to Robb it was a brilliant deal he did with Yokohama.

There are now upwards of 15 versions of the race RS500 in 1.18 by Minichamps Autoart and Biante and all of them are very detailed. Most go up in value, as they only come out as limited builds, and sell for more than the original purchase price once the build run is sold out, well that my excuse for buying them

Unfortunately every time we fitted one of David's engines in the BTCC RS500 to test, the motor would usually destroy itself in a handful of laps. It wasn't until Mountune got the Dick Johnson software that was supplied with the Startrec cars that David produced an engine that would hold together.

By the end of '87 Dick had had enough of Andy holding him by the proverbials as Andy wouldn't show him how to program the chips. IIRC he was directed to Ford's Rally dept. which was using Motec software on their Sierras and he was shown how to program them. Thus he was able to develop his cars so well from the other side of the world. He was also able to homologate a 9" inch diff (as 2 variations of the same component could be homologated) which eliminated a main weakness, and produced his own wheels which were used widely in Australia as an alternative to the usual BBS versions.

Big thanks to TNFer Bauble (Bob) who got in contact and posted on some great period pics he had taken of a variety of the cars, and he has given permission for them to be used on the post so here they are for everyone else to enjoy :-

Of the compilation I think this is my favourite, as its a lesser known car so rare to find. Going by the 4 stud wheels I think its one of the early Terry Drury cars, possibly the one for sale as a resto project with Oakfields that went on to become a rallycrosser. Anybody know who the driver is?

Of the compilation I think this is my favourite, as its a lesser known car so rare to find. Going by the 4 stud wheels I think its one of the early Terry Drury cars, possibly the one for sale as a resto project with Oakfields that went on to become a rallycrosser. Anybody know who the driver

Definitely looks like the Mike O'Brien car to me- 'Bison' were usually one of Mike's sponsors, and those white 5-spoke wheels seem to have been a characteristic of the Terry Drury cars- the only other BTCC RS500s I can remember using them in '89 are Graham Hathaway's yellow car and I think the Karl Jones Duckhams car

Dennis Leech's car in 1990 ran with #22 with prominent 'Partservice' sponsorship and from the pics I've seen ran centre-stud rather than 4-stud wheels.

Yes! It is Mobrien, as we called him, he was one of the local drivers Eric and I covered for local papers.

Thanks Bob- on the evidence of pics of the internet, the three Terry Drury cars seem to have been particularly camera-shy- it's actually easier to find some of the occasional and one-off entries!I think they're the first clear pics of the O'Brien car I've seen in years- I was looking for one a while ago and was even having trouble finding one in contemporary Autosports....

Not being he organised type, I never catalogued my photos, and sold the relevant programmes some years ago, however, the final picture of the blue number 8 is of a local driver from Hemel Hempstead, Steve Osborn and was taken in April 1990 during a round of the Esso Saloon Car Championship at Silverstone.. This is one of a number of Sierra pictures I had published in local papers, Dave Pinkney, Mike O'Brien, and Sean Walker.

Many years ago I left a shoe box of negs with Ted at some meeting, unfortunately I did not add a name or contact number, and I believe the originals may be with him somewhere.

the son of the owner posted on another forum last year about the car being restored in Aus, wracking my brains to try and remember which chassis it was, if I recall its one that was sold on back then, and raced in valvoline colours. Will try and find the thread and confirm.

He did say the ultimate plan was to bring it back over at some point

the last DJR chassis to be built is currently up for sale in Aus as well with a dealer

the son of the owner posted on another forum last year about the car being restored in Aus, wracking my brains to try and remember which chassis it was, if I recall its one that was sold on back then, and raced in valvoline colours. Will try and find the thread and confirm.

He did say the ultimate plan was to bring it back over at some point

the last DJR chassis to be built is currently up for sale in Aus as well with a dealer

What kind of top speeds were RS500's achieving at places like Monza's S/F straight and Bathurst down through Conrod during the ETCC/WTCC years? Were they consistently the fastest car in class / overall? Judging by the power they developed compared to the 'Atmo' cars in the other classes like the BMW M3, i would guess yes!